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Post by johneppstein on Sept 28, 2020 18:40:49 GMT -6
We had one of those when I was at Don Wehr's back in the '80s. Great amp and quite revolutionary at the time. Or now, for that matter.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 28, 2020 13:45:41 GMT -6
In many ways I think "the old boss" was actually better. You can't really make a living being in a band anymore unless you're already famous - and a lot of them are struggling. Songwriters - really good songwriters - are starving.
Ask JohnKenn what his royalty payments are like.
I had a deal for 15 years. Had No. 2, No. 15 and No. 20 songs (and many album cuts) and I can’t make a living as a songwriter anymore. That being said, I’m happier now writing (for no one), producing, mixing and make more than I did at the end of my publishing deals. The only negative with the songwriting is that if you’re not with a publisher, you’re not really in the game. ...so I started to look for another deal earlier this year, but there’s no point with all that’s going on right now. Publishers are on the brink of going under. I’ve had on-going conversations with a few publishers that I think can move the needle...and I can tell I’m not what they’re looking for...by that I mean, I’m not a sure-fire return on their investment. And THIS is the result of what’s happening in the industry and the article above. When there was a sure-fire way to make money - mechanical royalties - publishers could take chances. But now they need singles. It’s the only way to make money. So it’s absolutely less about the music than it’s ever been. If you are the artist’s cousin and co-writer and couldn’t write your way out of a paper sack, you’re most likely going to get a publishing deal. Because you’re in the camp. You have access. Because there’s so little money to go around in the pub/songwriting world, there ARE NO outside cuts. Ok, maybe the biggest artists have a song they love and cut it, but 98% of the time - even if the artist didn’t write it, follow the money. Usually the same publisher. This all happened because of streaming. Because of democratization making the the pond of music into the entire seven seas. Unless you have a million dollar marketing budget, you Will. Not. Get. Heard. Are there rarities that blow up? Sure. Maybe what - 5 a year? How many millions of artist are added to Spotify every year? It’s sad. Well said.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 27, 2020 21:34:20 GMT -6
Nope, I replaced the Sampson one with a Neutrik 1/4" TRS bay and problem mostly solved. But all 1/4" TRS bays suffer from cross-talk issues. I think the old fashioned Switchcraft bays might be better because all jacks are individual and mount to a non-conductive phenolic/plastic front plate. There is no common ground. And, of course, they're MIL spec.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 27, 2020 21:24:06 GMT -6
The old guard IS the record labels. They’re still raking in the money.
yeah,..... while it's been touched on here about the effect of the current streaming model along with many other points....... who controls distribution changes everything, and I think that impact of labels/streaming co's reclaiming the brief period of democratization where independant artists were able to monetize their music sales of CD and downloads to support their overhead, only to lose that back to the new old guard of labels/streaming co's collecting the money first and paying out a paltry streaming amount to the creators is where democratization was for the time being lost again........it may be a democracy for creating and uploading content today, but with labels/streaming co's controlling streaming payments, it's no longer a democracy again in my view where it's key to sustainability in distribution and is when everything changed again,...... like the Who said,..... " Meet the new boss,..... same as the old boss"
In many ways I think "the old boss" was actually better. You can't really make a living being in a band anymore unless you're already famous - and a lot of them are struggling. Songwriters - really good songwriters - are starving.
Ask JohnKenn what his royalty payments are like.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 27, 2020 21:18:05 GMT -6
Mr. Eppstein, I respect your position, but the number of incorrect assumptions you’re positing as fact is not worth my rebutting- it would be a fool’s errand at this point. While we seem to agree on many of the finer points whether you realize it or not, you seem unwilling to give any value to lived, real world experiences other than your own. I’ll continue to do my best to serve my clients and myself, as I’ve done for half of my thus far relatively short life time, while actively avoiding falling into this sort of elitist thinking that serves only to create senseless division and enrich the suits and the techies who benefit from under compensated artists. Do I wish it was still the good old days, and that clients and their record companies had much larger budgets? Absolutely, but the times have changed. By the way, music from the ‘50s, ‘60s, and beyond is still available to listeners, and in more formats than ever- I myself prefer an RVG, Nelson Riddle, or Cal Tjader production over almost anything being produced today, but it would reductive, dismissive, and unwise of me to assume that my own predilections preclude the possibility that music of that caliber could be (and is) produced today. Is there an overwhelming glut of absolute garbage? Undeniably, there are seven billion people kicking around these days, and they can’t all have that magic combination of talent and a hard working ethos. However, excellent recordings (that I’d wager you yourself would thoroughly enjoy) are likewise being produced in numbers greater than ever; it’s a matter of knowing where to look and being receptive and open. My point is that music of that quality is no longer made. There's some good stuff, but what's on the radio or the big Spotify playlists is, for the most part, cookie cutter stuff that has all the soul processed out.
And much of the old stuff that's available has been "remastered" to its detriment.
Nobody is making music to the old standard because, frankly, it's too damn expensive to book a real studio and a small to medium "orchestra" to make it. And many, if not most of the real studios have been closed or are closing due to the rising cost of real estate. Nobody could afford The Wrecking Crew to cut a single. The musician fees would exceed the cost of the entire record.
As far as whether or not I'd enjoy the majority of music being released commercially today, the answer, as far as I can tell, would be no, I don't. In the car I listen mostly to Willie Nelson't traditional country show, with an occasional switch to Dwight Yoakam. There's virtually nothing being released today that does it for me. Even contemporary artists whose talent I really respect, like Lady Gaga, don't put out commercial releases that I'd really care to listen to most of the time.
And current pop songwrighting really sucks for the most part - there are no stories in the songs anymore. And the production tends toward the strident and unmusical.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 27, 2020 20:29:41 GMT -6
Johnepstein old buddy I love your spunk. But the world ain't flat, I promise it's round. You keep mis-applying my words, and showing your lack of knowledge. I know the differnce in an AKG capsules and and M7/K7 capsule seeing how I make em. You want to see our non-center terminated breakthrough aluminum capsule prototype to prove it? Or an AKG capsule in our lab? Do you know what a transducer is? And Yes condenser is a capacitor of sorts that uses minuscule amounts of electricity. In fact in the old world they still refer to them in some parts as capacitor mics. And the anachoic chamber can be used to block out all noise in order to MEASURE transformer hum by golly. Not as a shield for a transformer. I'm not your enemy brother. Too much there for me to keep going on. Busy here. Really busy. And cheap tube? Come on man. A straight 12AX7 is a noisy bitch. Thank God we don't use one! And the hand made German tube we do use ain't cheap. (We use a 12AX7 WAR) It cost more than the average tube used by any of my competitors. Then there is the 7025's we use in our 47's - real 7025's I might add - military grade. Now I have a collection of everything from old Mullards, Telefunkens, and a variety of very expensive NOS RCA 7025's from the 60s. But our hand made German tube beats them all and yes all of this was a daring concept design wise. God bless you Epstein. Hope we can get real with each other sooner rather than later. You can talk directly to me. Call me Tommy. In regards, shootouts - I'm game as described otherwise a small studio in Virginia already kicked the crap out of the pristine legacy recordings of Frank Sinatra using our mics and and Avalon 737 on vocal and I forget what he used on clean guitar cabinet off the top of my head. None of this work did I solicit or pay for. I'm super super grateful for the contributions. Wish you guys would LISTEN to the mic. That's what you do for a living. Make and judge great sound. Right??? Come on! I'll help you any way I can. And, yes, the guys that make your BL mics and your Ne mics and your Te mics are all mostly in Ningbho! The really really good manufacturers are there! You are already buying that "crap!" I do use German stuff and Russian stuff, etc. too, in my mics. OK, Tommy, you want me to "get real" with you? Here goes, you better sit down.
A 12AX7 is a 12AX7. They are NOT microphone tubes - too much gain to start with. A premium 12AX7 is still a 12AX7. They are great guitar amp tubes. They are by no stretch of the imagination a proper tube for any professional microphone. All REAL 7025s are Mil spec - that's what a REAL 7025 is - a Mil Spec 12AX7. To my knowledge thery have not been produced for decades Most that I've seen/used were produced by RCA in the good ole USA. You really don't want my lecture on the crap tubes coming from the previous Communist bloc. Suffice it to say that they do not have either the tooling or the metallurgy to reproduce the old premium tubes. And let's not even bother talking about the lost knowledge and craftsmanship.
"Hand made German tube"? They don't even MAKE tubes in Germany anymore and haven't for decades. What kind of fools do you think we are? As I understand it the restriction of technolgy for ecological reasons makes manufacture of tubes illegal except in the former Communist bloc, where they don't care about the planet.
Do you understand that ELA M mics did not ever use 12AX7s, and to change the tube type in the mic fundamentally changes everything about it?
Understand, I'm not some dumb bozo on the internet - I'm 70 years old and have been in audio for well over 50 years. I service teched for many of the top stores in the San Francisco Bay Area, 2 dedicated service facilities, The M. Hohner company (West coast factory service tech), and Bill Graham's FM productions. I knew Klaus Heyne before he bacame one of the world's top mic gurus. I have a collection of over 85 microphones. I'm been an internationally touring guitar tech (not that that is relevant here). I've been a live mix engineer, operated my own sound company, and have my own studio with over $200,000 worth of gear (that makes me a "small" studio by traditional standards. I run a 24 track Studer and a 32 channel, 64 input British console. I'm not going to bother listing the artists I've worked with in one way or another. Can't remember all of them, anyway, but lets say that they range from Robert Fripp to Mary Wells, to the Butthole Surfers and RHCP, to the top 5 Cal metal bands beginning with the letter "M". I've been into mics since before you could walk, probably since before you were born.
I own ZERO mics with Chinese capsules (edit:except one that I haven't ditched yet, purchased for the body shell for a DIY build I never got around to) - I have in the past but never used them for anything serious - gave most of them away.
Your Chinese capsules are JUNK. The really good manufacturers are NOT there, they are in Europe and the USA. Heiserman, Thiersh, Neumann, Pearlman, original AKG, etc.
"And Yes condenser is a capacitor of sorts that uses minuscule amounts of electricity." Do you understand how green and dumb that sounds here? Evidently not. And no, caps do not "use" electricity in the way you seem to think. Capacitors are PASSIVE components - they don't actually "use" electricity, they control the flow of electricity. It appears you don't really understand the difference.
You ask "Do I know what a transducer is?" Do you have any idea what a FOOL that makes you on this forum?
And you're too stupid to even spell my name correctly. It's EPPSTEIN - TWO "P"s. That's NOT a typo. Get it right, Tummy.
Not interested in "a small studio in Virginia" that nobody knows about. You might as well say "My dog says it's a great mic." Send your mic to Vincent or Martin for a proper comparison. We don't know your anonymous "small studio in Virginia" and frankly don't want to. They probably don't own any mics good enough to use as a reference.
Have you ever been inside a real anechoic chamber or only read about them? I have, BTW, at least twice. There are only a handful of real anechoic chambers in the USA, owned mostly by universities and the US government.
Avalon made good stuff for the prosumer market 20 years ago. It's not well thought of now by most serious people.
You want to "help" us "understand" your mic? Send it to Vincent. But you won't because you're chicken. BrrAWWWK!!
And yes, "condenser" is a somewhat archaic synonym for "capacitor." D'Oh!
But please keep coming back. The comedy is appreciated, although the insults are not.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 27, 2020 18:40:35 GMT -6
svart I would encourage a SW vs HW test. They’re always revealing for me. Best way I’ve found is to do a several tracks and listen to them together. Run them through your hardware and through plug-in emulations of that hardware (or as close to that as can be done). RMS normalize everything, group them and then blindly toggle back and forth between the hardware and software group. For me, I need to hear a whole song image (not necessarily a bunch of overdubs but at least like some wide guitars, bass, drums, vox), how things sit in their spaces and interact and punch together. Single comparisons don’t tend to tell me as much about that. I love software and rely heavily on lots of plugins but in many cases hardware still wins for me, sonically. Running tests helps me decide what workflow burdens are worth what sonic gains (or the converse). And getting those mental data points really helps define and delineate various wandering ideas about what to buy or sell or move into or away from. YES! With reverb expecially. You CAN'T judge a reverb except in context, in a more or less full mix.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 27, 2020 13:09:31 GMT -6
I did a lot of research before buying the V69, and when a great deal arose that included a better tube already installed I went for it. I had listened to clips of singing with the V69, and I was quite pleased with the results I got from the mic I purchased. However, remember this is in a hobbyist context, not a professional one. Thanks. It's better to save up your money rather than go for the "instant gratification" of "hobbyist" gear. And frankly, for what you spent on the MXL you could have purchased a GREAT professional quality dynamic. For example, a Beyer M88. Or even a lowly Shure SM7. or, for a little bit more, a Sennheiser MD441. (Edit: It seems that prices on these mics have gone up a bit in the last year. I paid $300 for my M88 a couple of years ago.)
Internet "research" is usually crap unless you already have enough knowledge to recognize when somebody is selling you a "bill of goods". You can't tell when someone is lying, spinning, or simply being paid to push a product - or just spouting through the top of their head either out of ignorance or to try and become an "internet hero".
"This is the best mic I've ever tried" when they've never tried a really good mic (which they DON'T tell you, of course...)
You also can't trust internet "clips" because you have no way of knowing what procerssing might have been applied. And since different mics respond differently to position, even "equal" shootouts don't really give an honest picture.* The only way to really know a mic is by trying it.
And, of course, none of this stuff tells you squat about build quality. Which appears to be your current problem.
There are exactly TWO people on the net whose word I trust on mic shootouts, and both are members of this forum. Vincent R and Martin John Butler. That's not to say that they're the only ones whose word I trust, but they're the only ones who do a lot of shootouts.
Anything you read in a commercial audio magazine (other than Tape Op) is tainted because all those magazines are paid for by advertising and reviews are written or edited to avoid offending advertisers. That's not to say that all their reviews are bogus, just the ones of gear that isn't up to snuff in some way. So you can't tell.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 26, 2020 23:38:04 GMT -6
I understand, respect, and even agree with your perspectives in many if not most regards, but I wanted to offer the alternative perspective that many of my contemporaries share. My contemporaries as well as myself are necessarily and objectively less experienced than yourselves, but are nonetheless embroiled in and trying to eke out at least a fraction of a living in today’s shifting landscape, and yes, many if not most of those contemporaries do make up what you (and I, in many cases) would deem the mass of mediocrity. Some of those contemporaries, however, are amongst the most talented individuals currently working, and they are also the individuals who will assumedly be working in the industry decades from now, when the vestiges of an industry we once knew are long gone. I’m likely amongst the last generation of engineers to learn their trade by apprenticing and observing at large, commercial studios, and whether I like to or not, one day even less-experienced engineers with less formal training than myself will supplant me and my own contemporaries, and I choose to accept that and adapt as well as I’m able, as much as I dislike it. My ultimate point here is that upstart engineers (whether we can even properly call them that or not) and their access to music making tools are not really the source of the problem, but that the problem lies in the distribution of the earnings of those artists. PRO’s and Harry Fox can’t save artists and engineers as things are; the system itself is broken. In a system where one can garner millions of streams and receive almost nothing to show for it something is clearly amiss, and it behooves only those who are unfairly withholding those earnings for artists and creators to blame one another. It is the greatest time in the world to be a listener of music, why should it not be an equally great time for the creators of that music? Anyway, thank you guys for engaging with my perspective; I’d wager that we’d agree on more than we’d disagree at its core, though we may see it from a different point of view. I have the utmost respect for you guys professionally, and am deeply thankful for all of the info and experience you freely give in general, that I believe the audio world is better for. My advice is that if you want to eke out a living, go to law school and become a lawyer. If you expect any real career in music these days, you're fooling yourselves. You want to do something about exploitation from internet behemoths? Be a lawyer. Musicians and engineers don't stand a chance.
The greatest time to be a listener was the '50s, '60s, and '70s. By the '80s is was still there a bit, but fading. If you weren't there you have no idea of the excitement and freshness there was. There is nothing around today that can compete.
The perspective of your contemporaries? Meaningless because you have no standard of comparison. You weren't there. You think that playing with toys in your home studio and putting out something on the internet is something? Back in the '60s, at the time of my first band, you could put a band together and if you were any good you could go to a local 3 track studio and cut a single, have it pressed, and schlep it around to the local Top 40 DJs and record shops. You'd get your friends to call in and have a really good shot at a local radio hit and sales. If it made the local charts it would go regional, then national if you toured to support it. I grew up in the middle of Oklahoma and there were lots of bands that had at least moderate success with that model. You could support yourself without a soul-sucking day job, put yourself through college, whatever. We didn't need no stinkin' internet. We had peoplenet.
The trick was starting young, in jr high or high school and not giving up.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 26, 2020 18:37:57 GMT -6
I don't use plugins much, but this has me a bit intrigued - does it work on vocals?
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 26, 2020 17:55:46 GMT -6
If you found the one MXL mic that doesn’t sizzle, be happy. I’m guessing the one that doesn’t sizzle is the “broken” one. Or whatever is broken, cable too long so it’s killing the highs... COOL! Congrats! All MXLs you want to use a plugin EQ and low pass around 12kHz, and sweep it down to around 8kHz. I usually low pass them around 3-4kHz and just try to get some midrange out of them. I hope this helps I don't use MXL products. I think there might be one in the bottom recesses of the mic closet, but I prefer mics that are reliable and sound good.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 26, 2020 17:47:38 GMT -6
No ward, last time it was about compatible cables. Now I have one that was made for the mic, but there is a strong sizzle, though I noticed that even going back to the old 7 pin cable (only difference being the PSU, both of which are made for this particular mic) there is more sizzle than there used to be, so perhaps it's the PSU or the surge protector strip? I'll report back after I do more troubleshooting. There's a fair chance that there may be a loose or otherwise bad ground in the mic. I've heard of a similar problem in tube mics of far better construction than your MXLs (certain Neumanns, Gefells, some older AKGs.) The question is whether it's worth paying a proper tube mic tech to figure it out. I'm guessing it might be cheaper just to buy a new mic.
And no, it's not the surge protector.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 26, 2020 17:36:18 GMT -6
That was an interesting read, but oh man, it gives off a real Parisian gallery old guard deriding the upstart impressionist painters kind of vibe. Dead wrong. That was a question of style. THIS is a matter of SURVIVAL, regardless of style.
Sure. As a doctor or lawyer or business executive. Almost anywhere but music.
(Thanks to Malvina Reynolds)
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 26, 2020 17:27:27 GMT -6
One last thing. I am a MUSICIAN, AUDIO ENGINEER, and SERVICE TECH. (And I can't work as a tech now because my soldering hand shakes like a leaf when I do anything precise with it.) What I an NOT is a manager, booking agent, video producer, or any of the other ancillary tasks that bands need. I am not a gear pimp - too honest. I am a MUSICIAN and ENGINEER.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 26, 2020 17:02:41 GMT -6
I’d also argue that in eras past, with their significantly more limited distribution options, more chaff rose to the top than otherwise, and genuinely worthy acts were passed up in favor of more marketable acts. That isn’t to say the same doesn’t happen today, but independent artists and those with whom they choose to work (recording, mixing, and mastering engineers, agents, managers, website managers, etc.) have publishing and distribution abilities beyond that which they could have dreamed of twenty years ago, and their voices are therefore louder now than ever. Now, not everyone wants to hear those particular voices, which is of course the way subjective personal preference works, and for those listeners and their preferred artists there are likewise more venues through which to discover and listen to their sort of music than ever before. The problem then, looking at it from either of our perspectives, is one of remuneration: how can those chosen, worthy artists and their teams be compensated in such a way that allows them to continue doing what they’re doing? The revenue of streaming platforms absolutely goes to show that the money is out there, but it’s being channeled into what are arguably the wrong hands. Again, no insult intended, but you are DEEPLY delusional. "More limited distribution options"? No, there are far fewer - no independent radio, no record shops, no nothing. You can make $0.000001 per play on "Spottedfly".
What DOES exist is a nearly unlimited number of ways to give your work away for free, often for the profit of strangers you'll never meet - or even learn their names.
The business of audio engineering is all but dead. You can work for a month and not make enough to pay a week's rent. Mastering is the same way - I have a friend who's a mastering engineer with many, many albums and movies to his credit who, at the age of 50, is forced to perform manual labor to make ends meet - which he is really in no physical condition to do. He's selling off his gear and land. Agents and managers are making no money (unless they're fortunate to have big name "legacy" clients) because there is zero money in being a journeyman working musician. An entire band is lucky to get paid what ONE MEMBER used to make when I was young (adjusted for inflation.)
The internet has made music worthless. The ONLY people making money (aside from a handful of legacy acts) are people who have nothing at all to do with its creation or production.
Why do we do it? Because it's what we do, and for most of us it's too late to change.
"Art for art's sake" That's like saying "Do it for the EXPOSURE." I have a stock answer to that - "People die of exposure every year."
At least when there we gatekeeps there were viable gates to present our work to, and paying gigs to tide us over without soul-sucking day jobs.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 26, 2020 16:35:07 GMT -6
That was an interesting read, but oh man, it gives off a real Parisian gallery old guard deriding the upstart impressionist painters kind of vibe. All of the logical fallacies aside, I think their premise that any half-rational professional is looking to the industry in 2020 for a stable, sustainable career, let alone to make it big, is patently flawed. Anyone who’s getting into this business with money as a main impetus has been ignoring the writing on the wall, though maybe it has dulled given it’s been scrawled there for a good thirty-odd years now. Speaking strictly from a recording/mixing engineer perspective, fewer a&r or manager-types in the control isn’t exactly an unappealing prospect... edit: I want to add that I think they’re spot on with it being a top down sort of issue at its root. While I don’t see the democratization on the production and publishing sides as an evil, I do believe how royalties are distributed (or really, not distributed) is nearly-criminally unjust, and is what’s causing the industry to be in a state of flux, thus creating the career vacuums that we’re now faced with. Intellectual property rights in general are being badly mishandled these days, at the cost of the artists and those with whom they work. I wish I had some sort of at all tenable solution to add, though. Please excuse me for saying this, but I think your post puts you squarely in the morass of mediocrity that William (disclosure: an online friend of mine who has, in many ways, been a mentor) is talking about. We DO NOT NEED more mediocrity - it's actually drowning a lot of talent. People who probably SHOULD be recording with successful careers who look at the state of the industry and simply don't bother, as the opportunity for reward (or just a living wage) is essentially nil. And 99.9% of those indulging themselves in their "home studios" probably should be in the audience playing air guitar and expending their energy on a proper day job. Meanwhile the ones who should deserve being heard are not.
It gets worse every year. This year the AES is running a symposium on "Artificial Intelligence in the music business." When that happens we will all be "obsolete" - the chances of making a living in audio production will be absolutely nil - not just records but movies, TV, the whole schmear. The entire "industry" will be computerized, the only money will go to the owners of those computers, not to us. There will be no "Audio Engineering" to have a society for.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 25, 2020 18:45:16 GMT -6
Try recording with a ribbon mic.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 25, 2020 13:44:23 GMT -6
Tape plugs in general can be kind of a rabbit hole that often doesn’t make things better, just different. I haven’t used any (excluding for effect) in a couple years...but I did use the ATR on the last mix I did in Luna. Thought it made a positive difference in the bottom end on the drum bus and bass...but it was subtle. Same here! I've bounced a couple final mixes to a Studer 2 track but recently my most used plug ins have been the fabfilters which are super cool but definitely not color plugs. Tape should be used on the front end. I track to the Studer and then dump to the DAW. For some reason doing it the other way loses most of the effect.
Of course you need a multitrack machine for that...
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 25, 2020 13:40:45 GMT -6
It's a great plugin. The tape emulations are very good, and the MCI console emulation awesome as well. It has lots of tape machines models, a really nice collection. The tape compression is there if you push the input knob. What it lacks compared to other good tape plugins like IK or magnetite is all the distortion, wow/flutter. It does lack an ATR-102 as well, but Acustica is known to develop free upgrades completing the collections. So it should appear one day, and the distortion as well I guess. But the Eq models are very nice, colored and musical. They should not be overlooked. Finally, you can bypass the tape sound and just have the head sound of the machine, which is awesome, but can yield to phase issues if you wanna make a mix between both stages, as it would on a hardware tape machine. They do black friday sales, and have discounts from time to time. It's nice that someone is making a "tape sim" that skips the "emulation" of a broken machine. By which I mean wow/flutter and distortion. If my machine did that I'd either be pulling and repairing the bad cards or calling my Studer mechanic for the broken transport.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 25, 2020 13:33:32 GMT -6
One way around this is don’t use phantom power. My studio is phantom power-free (all tube mics, plus dynamics and ribbons) Also I do this because a lot of the vintage preamps I tend to like don’t have it. I do have 2 shure condensers for toms and use an old Sony stand-alone power supply for those. That's fine if you don't use a console newer than about 1970.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 25, 2020 13:25:28 GMT -6
So the only risk occurs while the jack is being inserted into the socket then, right? There's no problem passing phantom power through the patchbay once the jack is in? Sorry, just want to make sure I'm reading correctly. And for the most part, if your gear and mics are all pin 2 hot - which they SHOULD be, and if not you should remedy that, the transformer in the ribbon mic will block any dc from passing through to the ribbon element. So - phantom will not hurt a ribbon mic (if everything is wired up professionally and properly) First thing I do when I walk into a room I’ve not used before is check phase of outboard gear to make sure I’m good. Running tone out of the console and into every piece of gear can seem like a pain in the ass... but boy is it worth it in the long run (also make assistants check all cables to make sure they are wired properly) Er, no, it's not a pin 2 hot/pin3 hot issue. Phantom is applied to both signal leads, that's what makes it "phantom".
The issue is that most older ribbon mics have a grounded center tap on the transformer, so if you're plugging into a phone type balanced jack it puts a surge of DC across the mic element. It's brief, but that's all it takes to take out a ribbon. The transformer sees ther "blip" as 1/2 cycle of AC, not DC. Transformers only pass a changing signal, so they block DC - EXCEPT when it's turned on or off. Which is why you get "pops".
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 25, 2020 13:19:23 GMT -6
An excellent solution, albeit one that can get expensive. I'm not against people running 48v thru their patchbay and going all kinds of places it was never intended to go, but I'm not going to consciously do it. And I don't care what the running consensus is on EITHER forum. Same here. I dont ever consciously (or unconsciously) run phantom through the patchbay, for obvious reasons. But I'm not sure why you think it's expensive? A two or even four channel standalone phantom power supply can be had for a few hundred bucks. Well, if you're running 24 channels on a full band session it can get a bit costly. But I do like your method in principle.
And if you're running tube mics the issue doesn't exist, natch.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 25, 2020 13:14:53 GMT -6
No comment. Except that laziness usually wins. but what about having microphones set up and plugged into the patch panel feeding into the central bays in the studio and then patching the miclines into preamps also connected to the patch bays, and being able to change preamp selection if something isn't working, and swapping back and forth with comprssors and/or EQs etc in the signal chain in order to get the desired results? Are you suggesting it's lazy to have a multitude of options at your fingertips? Yes, sometimes.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 25, 2020 13:09:51 GMT -6
Having mic tie lines patched (usually normalled) into the console or outboard preamps has been the only setup I’ve seen in any studio, including my own. I’m not sure I know what the alternative would be; somehow disconnecting the preamp input from the bay and then manually plugging in a mic cable? Most consoles I’ve used don’t even have an input separate from the patchbay (i.e., the modules’ ins are wired internally to the balanced TT bay, there’re no XLR connectors involved outside of the live room). If I need to plug a mic in in the control room I generally just use an XLR -> TT cable. As for phantom power, using standalone supplies (48v phantom, 12v tonadier, tube-specific, etc.) near the source has always been my preference. Makes signal flow clear, allows for high quality supplies, and obviates any problems that could arise by blindly applying phantom from in the control room. Good solution.
The way I do it, and have seen in some older studios, is to use XLR panels for mics, not TT or TRS. Or to simply keep lines patched to channels.
I think that the "no mic lines through TRS/TT bays is actually a much older way of doing things - I learned it, as I said, back in the '70s when most ribbon mics did have grounded center taps and hence were susceptible. In the '80s mic manufacturers stopped doing that for the most part, so it became of less importance. Since I do have a few older ribbon mics I prefer the old way, for safety. The alternative is to mod your vintage ribbons.
If you want to run, say, a comp before the pre it's no problem, since compressors don't output phantom on the input.
Also in older studios the use of outboard preamps was not so prevalent, so mic lines were often connected directly to the console.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 24, 2020 20:07:13 GMT -6
I do not run my Antelope Orion 32 into any other interface. The only thing it connects to is my console and outboard preamps, period. It has NEVER given me a problem, to date.
I am convinced that the ones crying about problems blew the installation, which is fairly easy to do if you're one of the people who don't bother to read the instruction manual and FOLLOW IT EXACTLY. I do not use MADI, ever, because at 96 it cuts your available channels in half. To me, running at 96, that's a colossal waste of money.Back in antiquity when everyone was at 48k it made sense, but I haven't run at 48 in ages. Why would anyone spend the money for 32 channels just to cut it in half to 16 with a stupid MADI connection? It makes no sense.
Reading about it in forums means nothing - the people complaining are those who blew their installation, which is easy to do IF YOU DON'T FOLLOW THE DAMN DIRECTIONS IN THE MANUAL. It's not that the directions are at all difficult, either, but you MUST do everything in the stated order and you MUST be connected to the internet BEFORE YOU START. If you try to install without being connected you WILL screw it up.
JUST FOLLOW THE DAMN DIRECTIONS!
I got mine back in August 2016 and it has been solid ever since, no "other interface", no glitches, no nothing. The inputs connect to my console or preamp outputs from the outboard pres. The outputs connect to the console.
Running under Win 7 - I see no reason to change; the only time that computer has been connected to the internet is that installation.
It also seems like a great number of those complaining have never actually used the interface - they're parroting crap they read posted by crybabies on GS. Once something like this gets posted online it self-perpetuates.
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